The Dom Who Loved Me (Masters and Mercenaries #1)(31)

Sean was happy with his accent. It mirrored Liam’s. If he said another word about Grace, Sean would be forced to do something else.

Liam was on his feet in an instant. His mouth hung open with shock rather than anger. “Damn me, Little Tag. Tell me you haven’t fallen for the girl. Sean, this ain’t a good idea.”

Sean shook it off and tried to act casual. “This was the plan from the beginning. I always planned on getting close to her. Now that I am close to her, I have to say that she’s an extraordinarily nice lady. I won’t let you talk about her like she’s one of your underaged hotties.”

Liam stared at him open mouthed and then looked to Ian. “Pull him out now. He’s compromised.”

Ian pointed to the condom wrappers. “Obviously. My brother’s virtue isn’t what I’m worried about. Did you plant the bugs?”

“Aye.” Liam seemed to hear himself and suddenly his accent was gone, replaced by the flat cadence of the Midwest. “Yes, sir. I have all her landlines bugged, and there are a few in strategic locations. If she makes contact with Wright here, we’ll know. By now, Adam should have bugged the office and her car. Also, we’ll know if Little Tag here breaks his record of f*cking her two whole times.” He held his hands up in submission. “Pardon me. We’ll be able to hear their beautiful lovemaking.”

Sean gave serious consideration to kicking his ass. It just wasn’t worth it. Liam’s head was too hard to knock sense into. “Is this really necessary?”

Ian inclined his head slightly, and Liam took it as his cue to leave. He disappeared out the back door. Sean was left alone with his brother. “It is. We need to monitor Grace Hawthorne as though she was a prime suspect. Sean, I’m worried about you. I think your girl is in this up to her neck.”

Sean rolled his eyes even though he knew he’d made the same argument to Adam just a couple of nights before. “Don’t be ridiculous. Grace isn’t some ecoterrorist. She’s a lovely widowed mother of two.”

There was a little pause that let Sean know Ian had something serious to say. Big brother knew how to leave him waiting. “She was arrested back in the mid-eighties.”

Sean’s head came up. “What are you talking about?”

Ian looked pleased to finally have his brother’s full attention. “The arrest was purged from the records because she was a minor, but Eve managed to dig up the files. She can find anything, you know. Grace Hawthorne, formerly Thornton, was arrested at a protest. She was charged with assaulting an officer. She was placed on parole and the charge purged from her record on her eighteenth birthday.

The knife in Sean’s hand fell to the side. There was nothing in Grace’s character that would lead him to believe she had a record. He would have bet his life on her being a perfectly law-abiding citizen. “What the hell was she doing assaulting a cop?”

Ian waved it off as though the reasons were inconsequential. It only mattered that she had been arrested. Sean knew that sometimes Ian saw the world in stark black and white, with absolutely no shades of gray. “Best I can tell she was trying to save a monkey or something. She tried to stop a van carrying primates to a lab that tested beauty supplies. She chained her liberal ass to the gate and refused to let the truck pass.”

Sean breathed a huge sigh of relief. That he could see. Grace had a strong instinct to protect anyone she thought weaker than herself. It was one of the things he admired about her. Hell, if he’d been there, he would have helped her. “If she hit a cop, then the cop deserved it.”

“Well, there might have been mention of some of the cops getting handsy with the female protesters.”

“See, he had it coming.”

“All right, I might give you that, but she’s deeply involved in a plot to keep the gas companies out of this area.”

“A plot? With who?” She hadn’t mentioned anything about this. Of course, they hadn’t spent an enormous amount of time talking. He’d been far too busy making her moan. That might be why it hadn’t come up.

“Her homeowner’s association. She’s been pushing everyone to refuse to sign their mineral rights away.”

The chicken was calling again. Ian was making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe his brother was missing his old black ops days. This was the real world, and not everyone had hidden motivations. “Well, call the cops, brother. She’s guilty of giving a shit. Maybe she doesn’t want a bunch of gas wells leaking natural gas into the air. You know those things are built as cheaply as possible. Give it up. You can’t call her an ecoterrorist because she cares about where she lives. Grace wouldn’t hurt a fly. Ninety-nine point nine percent of those greenies are the most non-violent people you’ll meet.”

“It’s the point one percent I’m interested in.” Ian’s blue eyes were hooded as he regarded Sean. It made Sean a bit nervous to be under that unblinking gaze. He felt like an insect being studied. The only question was whether Ian was about to push a pin through his abdomen and stick him in a box for collection. Sean stood silently, knowing that whatever Ian was about to do, he wouldn’t be able to sway him. Ian always made up his own mind in the end. “If I pull you out, you’ll be right back here, won’t you?”

And he was almost always right. “Only after I hand in my notice. I’ll quit the firm, and I’ll stay with Grace. I don’t believe for a second that she’s involved in this, but if something is going on around her, she could be hurt. I have no intention of allowing that to happen.”